Ice hockey, an international game of rapidly increasing popularity, requires the use of a solid perimeter fence, called dasher boards, preferably 42 inches high over the ice, with an abrasion resistant, smooth white vertical surface facing the ice. An additional replaceable kickplate is required extending several inches above the ice all around to absorb the most severe punishment of skates, sticks and pucks. The dimensions of the rink are generally 85 feet in width by 200 feet in length with 28 feet radius at the four corners, but wide variations from these dimensions are often used particularly in Europe where 30 meters (98.4 ft.) by 60 meters (196.8 ft.) is most common.
Dasher boards must withstand amazing abuse and punishment from skaters, hockey players and equipment, and bumping by heavy resurfacing machines as well as strong pressure from the expanding and contracting ice slab. This pressure also comes from water, either from melting, condensation and resurfacing procedures, being constantly refrozen in the vertical joint between the ice slab and the bottom of the dasher boards. Therefore conventional dasher boards must be anchored securely into concrete or some other equally strong bond with the ground thus requiring special construction features that make the area either quite specialized or quite expensive, as in the case of a multi-purpose indoor sports arena or colliseum.
It is the purpose of this invention to provide a method for securing dasher boards surrounding an ice rink in which no fastening into the ground is required of any kind and thus no special construction features are required before the rink is erected. Thus the rink may be set on any level area such as a a grassy playing field, tennis courts, parking lot, dirt or sand covered area, wooden or concrete floor, mall, stage, etc.
It is a further purpose to simplify and reduce the cost of installation of ice skating rinks in recreational areas. Another purpose is to provide a portable structure which can be moved from one place to another or set up in the same place seasonally so that the area can be put to another use in the non-skating season.
Another purpose is to provide a header box within the base of the dasher boards which eliminates the need for the usual expensive header trench and its covers.
Another purpose is to prevent the so-called "edge effect" in which the ice at the outer edge of an ice rink is softer or wetter because of the additional heat conducted from outside and because it is difficult to make freezing pipes uniform in curved corner sections.
A still further purpose is to provide a water-proof barrier at the perimeter as well as over the rink floor so that the rink may be flooded and frozen all at one time instead of the usual expensive practice of putting on a little water at a time and letting it freeze and repeating this every hour or so for 24 hours a day for several days.
An additional advantage is that this invention enables the provision of an absolutely level ice rink over a not-perfectly level area, such as tennis courts pitched for drainage, by using the water tight perimeter to form a shallow pool over the whole area and floating the plastic freezing pipes or tubes on this pool level.